Cows, Mechanics, and Wrong Turns

Hey all!

There is a famous tree here in Eutin. It is a big oak tree that actually has it's own address and because of a tradition started a long time ago, people from all over the world sendlove letters and postcards to this tree. So, the other day 2 of my friends and I decided to go see this tree for ourselves as one of our final adventures into Eutin. And and adventure it was...

The night before our adventure, my friend looked up the address to the tree online and google mapped it. It was about 7.3 km away, so a good walk but definitely not bad when you have the whole day to kill and a burning desire to get out of a rehearsal room. We woke up late the next morning grabbed brunch and set out at a good pace towards our goal. Promptly, as usual when caught enjoying oneself outdoors , it started to rain. Luckily we were prepared and the rain only heightened the feeling that we were embarking on an epic quest to find "the tree." We walked through town, through a forest-y area and took our first turn. A half hour more of walking through the gorgeous scenery, we hit a dead end. Okay. First wrong turn only wasted 30 minutes. Not a big deal. We turned back and continued straight where we had before turned. A little while later we execute the correct left turn and continued south along 76 until we reached Bockholt (please, do everyone a favor and pull up a map, it's hysterical). We turned towards Roebel and kept walking. This was hour 3. The majority of the trip so far had been a steady flow of conversation about how this walk was like we were on a quest, how we wished we could dress like characters in our novels when they embark on journeys and the very occasional "is this the right way...?" to which we would shrug, slow our pace, get distracted by something and keep walking. Along this road we saw a bull lying on the grass on a rolling pasture surrounded by ducks as if he was there protection, we saw forest paths lit with the ominous, cloudy light where mist was still clinging to the ground and swirled when interrupted, we saw flowers that made us stop and look or smell, apples that made the branches the hung on bow until they hit the ground and we made friends with the cows along the way. In our defense, even after all of our "I don't think this is the right way"s, how could we have stopped? We walked until we reached Bujendorf. When we reached this town we really knew something wasn't quite right. We had gone through 2 forests and come out the other side with no sightings of this famous tree. We had to ask for help. We ducked out of the cloud that was encircling us, misting us from head to toe into a car repair placed called "Kramer's" and asked if they spoke English, nope. We asked how to get to the tree, he grabbed our address that we had for it and google mapped our way back to where our address was trying to lead us, because he didn't understand what "baum" we were talking about. We looked at the map and started to laugh. His map had the "tree" stationed just off Bockholt... nearly 2 hours and 6.9 km back. We laughed and thanked him and began back down the path we had just struggled up. Our feet were killing us, we were wet and cold and now very hungry. We got back to bockholt and turned down the road to Fassensdorf which was the correct road. 1 km outside of Fassensdorf and we realized that yet again google maps had failed us. We were distraught. There was then a shop to our right that, upon passing it the first time looked closed. The second time we passed it I said "What if the tree is in there?" Duh, of course it wasn't, but we decided that was a good idea to check since we had in fact checked everywhere else. We walked up to the glass doors and though we just knew it was locked. Miraculously the doors immediately swung open and we walked into an artistic looking room with concrete floors, pastel colors and classical music playing in the background. The piece playing was one that we had just played and the whole thing felt a little surreal, stepping out of our crazy exhaustion into a cool and relaxed place. Suddenly, a lady descends the stairs winding down in a back corner. Her hair is white and loosely pulled into a braid that frames her face in an "I know you're an artist" type way. She welcomes us and recognizes us as part of the festival immediately. She said that she's been waiting and wanting to meet some of us because she wants to offer her home to a student to come live with and be part of their family and teach them English and help in the garden. We fell into talking and told her we were searching for the tree. She tells us not only is it not anywhere around there, but it's in the complete opposite direction from where we were walking. Discouraged we all look at each other with what I'm sure was a pathetic expression and were going to thank the lady and cut our losses on the whole excursion when she says that she would love to drive us to the tree. She calls her husband down, we get into her car and drive the 10 minute drive to the forest. On our way, her and her husband call us "heroes" for saving their festival and thank us for everything we've done. This is the 3rd time I've either gotten a ride, or help from a person who wanted to give back to us after we have given their festival back to them. It is an amazing feeling to know how much our music does for a town. We arrive at the tree, all load out and walk with our new friends to a beautiful oak tree in a forest whose rival in beauty could only be found deep in British Columbia or the like. We took pictures in front of the tree and left. They drove us into the town square and invited ("invitated") us to dinner. We declined because of our dinner waiting at the Opernschuene (though we emailed them and invited them out tomorrow night and got them tickets to our concert).

The day was a perfect one. Good company, beautiful sights, and wonderful people. Days like this restore my love of people and remind me that no matter where you are, walking 14 miles to who knows where and lost in a random town in Germany, people are willing to help and offer you the best of them.

Pay it forward.

E and Doc